


Day 9: Flower Crowns - A Watchful Eye

by 221b_hound



Series: Techienician: Botanical Love [10]
Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 30 Days of Techienician, Flower Crowns, M/M, Techienician
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-08
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:11:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7989721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>General Phasma likes to walk her ship at night, and encounters two people in the Peace Garden: that fellow survivor of Nar Shaddaa and his awkward, large boyfriend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 9: Flower Crowns - A Watchful Eye

General Phasma has an entire ship to oversee, and since the First Order isn’t actually at war, she has a lot more time to be a more holistic kind of leader.

She’s noticed that odd little computer tech who was a refugee from the ecumenopolis of Nar Shaddaa, and who joined up with no other name but Techie. Techie was his crime clan designation on the notorious moon full of smugglers, murderers, traitors and thieves, but he seems not to have claimed another. It’s possible, Phasma thinks, that he doesn’t know any other.

For very personal reasons, General Phasma would very much like to do something permanent about Smuggler’s Moon, but it’s as full of people like Computer Technician Techie as it is of people like Grakkus the Hutt and Azmorigan the Slaver, so she’ll have to settle for what she can get: keeping an eye on a fellow escapee from that cesspit. She rather likes the odd little fellow, who is tougher than he looks, and his lumbering boyfriend, who is smarter than he seems.

The fact that her cat Captain Kit likes him too is a definite mark in his favour.

Phasma is currently thinking about how to get more of her crew to attend calisthenics, as she wanders the corridors in the middle of the night. There are always crew on shift, obviously, but research has found that a nominal ‘night’ is good for the psychological health of the ship’s inhabitants, so she’s instituted an eight-hour night phase. Half-staffed, lights dimmed in the quarters corridors. In an emergency, the Finalizer’s crew can scramble to positions in five minutes. She’ll check the metrics in another cycle and see if the benefits are measurable.

In the meantime, she often likes to walk the ship during the night cycle. It’s like taking her ship’s pulse. She’d do it anytime, really, but she’s so tall and recognisable that she tends to make the crew tense as she passes. They’re so aware it’s their general passing by; they stand taller and try to make a good impression, which is excellent of them, really. But she also likes just to walk and not have to stand so tall herself.

Her long stride takes her to the Peace Garden in the former weapons deck. She keeps the lights dimmed here for the night cycle because the plants need it. It’s what gave her the idea for the crew. Phasma likes to come here and spend a little time in the green. She was an adult before she ever knew what grass was. There wasn’t anything like it where she grew up on Nar Shaddaa. She finds it replenishing to her spirit.

Tonight, however, there are people in the garden. She hears them before she sees them. A tenor giggle, with a bass note laugh rumbling underneath it.

She stands perfectly still in the shadows of a fruit vine climbing up a trellis by the entry. She sees them: the odd little technician from Smuggler’s Moon and his boyfriend, who seems at times like a hairless Wookiee, all height and muscle and very little speech. The occasional roaring. She recalls that the Incident Reports from that quarter have diminished, suggesting the shift supervisor has finally asserted some discipline.

She’s curious that the partner of a big man with a noted temper has never reported domestic abuse. Indeed, her interest in Techie, and the time she spends checking on him, leads her to believe that the Wookiee-ish lad – Matt Hugon – is devoted to him.

And here the two of them are, laughing together in the low light of the Peace Garden.

Phasma peers across the paths to the patch of garden where the two men sit together. Beside them is a pile of cuttings – one of the crew has been pruning back the hwotha berry vines, which have grown so effusively it’s affecting other plants. Lengths of mottled green leaves and pale blue, trumpet-like flowers lie in a tidy heap on the path, not yet fed into the mulcher.

Techie, she sees, is nimbly weaving lengths of vine into a circlet, so that the green and leafy crown is festooned with flowers. Hugon is doing something similar, creating a flower crown more delicate than she would have expected from a man with such large hands. The two men stop from time to time to kiss each other’s cheek, or say something just below the level of hearing, and either kiss or murmur makes them smile and giggle.

Then she hears Matt Hugon say, very distinctly, “But you _are_ like a prince.”

Techie ducks and shakes his head, hiding a shy smile. “No. That’s you.”

“Princess, then,” offers Hugon, and he places the flower crown he’s made around the computer technician’s brow. “See? Pretty as anything.”

Techie looks up, and it’s almost painful for Phasma to see the adoration in his face. Phasma has never seen a living creature so happy as those two men.

Techie reaches up to place the flower circlet he’s woven onto Hugon’s head. It’s a perfect fit. “There. Pretty as anything.”

Hugon giggles. Phasma thinks it’s rather… adorable.  Then Hugon kisses Techie’s forehead and although his voice is low she can make out what he says next.

“You’re like fairytales,” says that deep voice, “But true.”

The computer tech rises on his knees, folding up into his big man’s embrace, and they kiss like fairytales too:  true love’s kiss.

While they are distracted, Phasma quietly departs from the garden. Part of her considers being a little envious of their happiness, but on the whole she feels… _replenished_.

**Author's Note:**

> I've given Matt the surname Hugon - the name of one of the team of French scientists who worked on the development of obstacle-locating radio apparatus in the 1930s.


End file.
